India has reached a total of 205 million internet users in October 2013 (137 million in urban and 68 million in rural areas)*. Beyond Emails, communication and social media, internet has also become a medium to access a plethora of information in any domain. Webchutney findings from a survey** reported that 72% respondents admit to using internet to access healthcare related information and 8 out of 10 respondents have looked for information not only for themselves but others also.
The following are some key trends in the Internet Usage for Health & Medical Needs
Understanding Diseases, Diagnosis & Treatments
There is a huge amount of healthcare related information available online today, including journals, articles, YouTube Videos, blogs and publications by reputed healthcare providers, Institutions & Organizations. It is not uncommon today to search online and diagnose a medical condition using symptoms. The consumers of healthcare in the internet age want to be better informed before making any decision and hence, have a pro-active approach to resolving any medical condition. There are many online resources, particularly international web portals such as WebMD, Medicinenet, Mayo Clinic, rightdiagnosis, etc., that are popularly used to diagnose medical conditions, perhaps before making a doctors’ visit or after to confirm the diagnosis. These portals provide a plethora of other health related information in areas of disease research, drugs, treatments and healthy living etc.
Searching for Doctors/ Hospitals
Growing incomes, Knowledge and awareness have also fueled the sentiment to get the best available in healthcare. People are increasingly searching for doctors across locations, specialties and ratings to avail the best there to suit their requirements. Platforms like Practo and Medindia facilitate online search of doctors across such parameters
Booking Appointments
Awaiting on a phone line or in a queue outside the doctors clinic is soon becoming a thing of the past. Today majority of reputed hospitals and doctors are working on creating a strong online presence, not just to address their branding and marketing requirements but to also create a more seamless, direct and easy contact process with patients/public. Click on this link for more information in this area
Virtual Clinics
Availing healthcare from your desktop is an emerging concept that intends to provide instant primary medical consultation/assistance irrespective of patient location. This could be extremely useful to time- starved/ busy people and the elderly who can save the effort on commuting to and fro the clinic. Consultations are given through video conferences, phones etc. on a one to one basis. However, this concept has its limitations in the type of medical conditions that can be treated, depending on the complication, tests required and where personal examination of the patients is indispensable. Some of the popular US online clinics are Teladoc, MDLIVE, American Well and Doctor on Demand. Many states in the US are reviewing their medical practice rules, so availability may change. In India too icliniccare is one such provider that offers 24/7 doctor consultation online
Booking Nurses/ Caretakers online
Given the growing aging population and the emergence of nuclear families in India, has increased the need to monitor the heath of the elderly / sick remotely, or to arrange for paid assistance at doorstep when required. In some cases, it is also the post- operative care that has moved from hospitals to home beds. Many companies have surfaced to meet this requirement. In India, industry estimates of the market size for home healthcare are aboutRs 12,600 crore***. Portea Medical, India Home Health Care, Health Care At Home, Homital all have websites and provide easy booking / contact to avail these services
*IAMAI, 2013
**Indiasocial.in “Catching the e-Healthcare Bug Survey”2011
*** Economic Times, Apr 15, 2014
Content is King
In the age of content marketing, blogs form the major chunk of content on the web. One of the oldest forms of social media communication is still going strong. They are the fastest growing medium on the web in India, with a growth rate of ~48% in the last calendar year. Apart from providing necessary information to potential customers, active bloggers are a brand in themselves.
The IndiBlogger & BusinessWorld Study 2014 - A Review
IndiBlogger & Business World studied the Indian blogosphere in Dec last year and came up with interesting statistics. The survey in itself was one of the largest of its kind, done across 1059 responses to a questionnaire, 318,059 blog posts submitted on IndiVine and 35,464 blogs.
Unsurprisingly, English is the primary blogging language for 88% bloggers with Hindi being a distant second at 5%. The study reinforces the fact that blogging and social media is essentially a young generation phenomenon with approximately 80% of the bloggers under the age of 35 but what surprises is the fact that 75% of active bloggers are male.
Blogs on Healthcare grew at 90% in 2013
Food and Drink, Travel, Movies & Technology seems to be the preferred blogging topics but healthcare has seen the highest growth last year. Twitter & Facebook were the top-2 social media network but with LinkedIn now jumping in the competition with the blogging platforms with its “Create A Post” feature; it will be interesting to watch the impact of LinkedIn in 2014. Currently, with 63% share, BlogSpot is the hot favorite.
Bangalore, Mumbai & Chennai are the top-3 cities in terms of blogger base
It’s the metros that rule the roost currently with 12% bloggers from Bangalore & Mumbai each. 86% bloggers monetize their blog in some way or their other & 56% of the blogs influence buying decisions. With a steep rise in the usage of social media by brands, blogs have become an integral part of the marketing & brand-building strategy. Hence it’s not surprising that guest blog posts stand at a high of 35% among all posts.
In 1639, a Nayak ruler handed over a small strip of land to the East India Company to build its trading warehouse. Little was known that it would lay the foundation for one of the historic cities of India in years to come.
22nd August, 2014 would mark the 375th anniversary of Chennai, earlier known as Madras. As part of the 375th anniversary celebrations, the Murugappa group has launched the #TheMadrasSong to celebrate the occasion & give a fitting tribute to the history, tradition, and culture of this city.
Check out the song that captures the soul of Madras:
In fact, the Murugappa group has planned a notable month-long campaign to celebrate the 375th year with already underway contests such as #FavMadrasMemory Map & photo contest, daily Madras trivia and the upcoming Murugappa Madras Quotient Quiz 4th edition on 6th September.
#FavMadrasMemory Map app that asks people to mark the spots that has given them their fondest Madras memory, has turned out to be very popular among the citizens here. It gives them a chance to reflect back to the memorable times spent in the city.
This is the time to be in Madras and enjoy the city at its best. Umpteen other events have been planned across the city such as quizzes, heritage walks, photo exhibitions, lectures, etc. Social Beat is proud to be associated with the #Madras375 Celebrations.
While you are reading this blog, there are millions of people liking, sharing or commenting on Facebook. If you are a business entity who wants to build a brand, convey a unique message, propel your business to greater heights you got to know things you should avoid while marketing on Facebook.
The most common mistakes Facebook Marketers do that one should avoid are as follows:
F - Fail to completely fill the brand page
When you are creating a brand page, ensure you fill up all details like address, cover photo & contact information that is easily accessible by the visitor. If you are expanding to newer locations, ensure you enlist them in your page or best to create separate pages for each location branch. You also get brownie points if you share similar URLs for Facebook, Web & your twitter handle. You should not change the URL/Facebook page that maybe misleading.
A - Advertisement Budget Constraints
Unfortunately many businesses fail to leverage Facebook as a powerful & effective medium of advertising due to budget constraints. The tools are sophistically designed to track which ad is performing better over a period of time. Using particular & relevant keywords you can target the right audience and ensure. A creative ad should have high brand recall, influence buying decisions & be rewarding like (price discount) to ensure higher engagement and conversion.
C - Cover photo
A cover photo encapsulates the essence of the brand – the look and feel & what the brand conveys. While it should be attractive & relevant, you should take care to refresh it from time to time. What’s pivotal in designing your cover page is that you should abide by the Facebook guidelines. It should not contain –
a). The contact information like mailing address, contact number, email ID or web URL.
b). A call-to-action button asking them to “like”, “share”, “comment”, “invite your friends”; it is to be strictly avoided.
c). This is commonly seen among e-commerce client - Showcasing price discounts like “30% off on purchase of Rs.1000 & above”.
E – Elaborate Text
Research proves that posts with about 150 characters get about 50% more likes & traction in comparison to those long posts with 200 characters or more. So keep it short to get better engagement, by breaking the barrier. People like visuals better than content. Be conversational – ask questions & encourage participation.
B – Blind eye to Facebook Insights
“Facebook Insights link” gives you a wealth of information about how well is your page doing. Monitoring results of each post – reach, likes, source of traffic, most viral posts, paid vs. organic traffic in absolute and relative measures. By closely tracking the performance, it is undeniably the best tool to channelize your efforts in the right direction to maximize your results. This helps you repeat what has worked best in the past, what time is the best to post (peak traffic) & which of your posts has connected well with your followers. Ignoring Facebook insights is like taking your page to the Holy Grail.
O – Over-posting Content
The frequency of posting can have a major impact on the number of “new page likes” and “reach” of the post. Your followers would love to see an excellent post a day rather than many average posts. They may also “unlike”/ “unfollow” if it occurs as spammy content. Take care to respond to comments on each post & never ignore complaints from unhappy customers. They are unlike to return if they feel unheard or ignored. You can manage it better with Facebook Brand Page Manager app.
O – One size fits all content
Your brand can have different products and customer segments. Showcasing all your messages on one Facebook page will alienate your fan base, rather than engaging them. Instead of a one-size fits all approach, identify your customer segments and have dedicated spaces for them. Alternatively, use post targeting to reach only users who would find the specific content engaging. For example, if you are a real estate company with properties across multiple cities, target posts related to properties in Chennai to fans based out of Chennai and nearby cities only.
K – Connect at the best suited time
Most people work from 9 am to 7 pm. Hence it’s important to ascertain what time is ideal to post, to ensure it maximum reach to target audience. Try to understand your audience & ascertain when traffic builds up in your page. Your posts reach will be higher if posted at an appropriate time. Nothing can stop a creative post, well timed, go viral.
To know more you can visit https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php
BJP-led NDA government's directive asking central government employees to use Hindi while posting tweets or messages on social media channels, has not gone down well with many sections in Chennai.
After DMK Chief, Karunanidhi opposed the move yesterday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the urgent amendment of an instruction that asks government departments to use Hindi for tweets and other social media posts.
Amidst the unwarranted controversy, BJP spokesperson, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has come out with an explanation that Hindi is the soul of India and this should not be seen as a move to disrespect English or any language; rather as a way to enhance the pride of being an Indian.
In a diverse country like India, it will not be easy to impose any language for official communication across the length and breadth of the country. There is a belief that it would be undemocratic to impose it. This line of thought feels that the government is trying to promote Hindi at the cost of other regional languages though this has been denied by the Ministry of Home Affairs. In this regard, another tweet was sent out yesterday by the Home minister’s tweeter handle: "The Home Ministry is of the view that all Indian languages are important. The Ministry is committed to promote all languages of the country.”
The arguments put forth by the other school of thought points out that Hindi is the 5th largest spoken language in the world and the concerns of being undemocratic are misplaced. It is strange that English, a foreign language is acceptable as a means of communication to learn and move ahead but cannot embrace Hindi. Take the example of United Kingdom, which consists of English, Wales, Scottish & Irish but English was accepted as “THE” language of communication.
Earlier this week, a news report had said that the central government has directed its employees and employees of central undertakings and banks to use Hindi or both Hindi and English on their official web pages in social media like Twitter, blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Google. It is a debatable issue and the unwarranted debates are expected to continue.
In the light of above controversy, one thing is sure that regional language content is indeed going to gain prominence online in the coming years and Facebook, Twitter, Google and other sites already having multi-lingual sites for Indians. Indians will continue to use multiple languages and cannot be constrained to only consume content in a single language. It will be interesting to keep a tab on how this entire episode unfolds and what are its’ implications for social media.
Welcome to the club !! Google Maps for Android has now crossed one billion downloads. Last month, Gmail for Android became the first app to cross this milestone. The listing of the Google Maps app on Play Store currently shows that the app has more than 1 billion downloads and between 1 billion to 5 billion installations. This obviously doesn't count on the iOS installs.
It will be interesting to see long does it take for the other apps from the Google stable like the Search & Hangouts as well as Facebook, WhatsApp & Twitter to cross the milestone. They current statistics are as shown below:
In 2011, it was Google Maps which was leading the race vis-à-vis Gmail, with the former becoming the first ever Android app to reach 50 million downloads. Although Gmail crossed the cart and catapulted quickly to the 1 billion mark, but it has been quite a journey for Google Maps-one of the oldest and most valuable components of Android. From mapping between two points, it has evolved into a navigation companion showing 3D maps, scaled distances, walking directions, indoor maps and what not. It definitely deserves an applause.
Note: Though there is no official announcement from Google on this, but the Google Play Store listing statistics are a fairly credible number to go with.
1 day to go. Finally, it's the FIFA World Cup time. Undoubtedly, one of the biggest sporting extravaganza on earth, it keeps the chatter going every time a Fifa WC is round the corner. But this time, it’s going to be more special. Thanks to the “Global Stadium”, which will allow the billions of soccer fans to stay updated real-time with all the excitement around.
The Global Stadium is an aggregator of all content surrounding the 64 matches in real time; also offering the chance to vote for the man of the match & win the actual kick-off balls used in each match in Brazil.
According to FIFA, the Global Stadium doors will open for each of the 64 matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ so that fans can follow the action live, minute-by-minute, and engage with friends, players, coaches and fellow fans across the globe while supporting their favorite teams at the tournament
Apart from a unique hashtag for each game, FIFA will be using the following hashtags: #WorldCup & #JoinIn. The entire site has been redone to give the fans a better user experience, especially the mobile users.
The social media presence of FIFA World Cup has racked up over 20 million likes on Facebook & 1 million followers on Twitter. It would be interesting to keep a tab on these figures at the end of the tournament. It would not be surprising to see a multi-fold increase as the tournament unfolds.
When FIFA is going digital, how can the real stars be far behind. The fan base of these superstars have reinforced the "Big-bang theory" or how else do you explain the mind-boggling number of fans on social media, with the Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo leading the pack. Here is a snapshot of how the megastars stack up in the digital world.
What does this hold for the marketers? Seeing the amount of engagement generated by the IPL this year, it offers an unprecedented opportunity to tap-in & will be interesting to watch how different brands leverage on this mega opportunity.
The Economic Times - Real Estate & Digital Conference in New Delhi, is still a month away (27th June), but the interest has started building among the digital agencies, real estate companies and marketing professionals. And why not, considering how digital media has revolutionised marketing for real estate developers. It is true that real estate is something which you purchase after physical verification, but the first step in the purchase funnel starts with a Google search or a click on a social media ad. In fact, the next step of narrowing down on choices is made online. Digital Marketing has a very important role to play in terms of lead generation. Actually, the ROI for digital media is better when compared to print media for real estate marketing. It has opened up huge opportunities in terms of an efficient leads-oriented ROI-based marketing but the path is not easy in this highly competitive industry. Several challenges lie ahead as the real estate industry goes through a paradigm shift in their marketing strategies.
With this as the backdrop, the Real Estate & Digital Conference – Future Perspective - New Delhi, will be a real eye-opener for everyone associated with the industry. When you want to discuss the digital media and real estate, you don’t get a better mix of industry experts than Marketing Gurus, Digital Marketers to Developers. The speakers’ list comprises the likes of Shailesh Rao (VP-Twitter), Brotin Banerjee (MD, Tata Housing) and Vikas Chawla (Co-founder at Social Beat).
Some of the key program highlights of the conference are:
Apart from the above discussed highlights, you would not want to miss out on the informative discussions around the real estate industry best practices for digital marketing, Real Estate case studies and in-depth panel discussions. If you are in New Delhi for the Digital Marketing for Real Estate India Conference, we would be glad to meet you. Please drop us an email at team@socialbeat.in.
Indian Premier League 2013 was special right since Twitter and IPL announced their partnership to give the IPL fans a real-time interactive experience. But being an experimental one, it was not able to offer the complete experience like what IPL Season-7 has offered in 2014. The trailblazing partnership offered a complete seamless experience across air, ground and online.
With a huge fan base of approximately 230 million users, the wide range of new interactive features added this year, kept this large base of fans grossly engaged. Real-time interactive features such as #IPLMagic, #IPLSelfie, #TwitterMirror, Twitter IPL Calendar has allowed the cricket fans to be engaged throughout and generate greater frenzy for both, IPL as well as Twitter. Features like IPL Pulse that allows spectators at the stadium to get their tweets featured on the big screen and IPL Selfie contest has turned out to be real hot property among the fans.
As the season draws to an end, it is worth mentioning that it is definitely going to leave a void in our lives. The daily anticipation for the matches, continuous engagement across platforms and frenzied passion across the two months of IPL is unparalleled. At this fag end, let us look back and see how the IPL-mania on twitter panned out this season.
The total #PEPSIIPL tweets this season has crossed a staggering 4.3 million and still counting. The most popular match in terms of the number of tweets was the scintillating final group game between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals.
Most Popular IPL Teams on Twitter (based on no. of followers)
Most Popular IPL Players on Twitter (based on no. of followers)
Top Teams with maximum mentions and related tweets
If an annual cricketing event like IPL can drive such an extent of social media engagement, with the FIFA WC 2014 just round the corner, it will be interesting to keep a tab on how social media revolutionizes the experience of a FIFA World Cup, one of the biggest sporting extravaganza on the planet after the Olympics. Undoubtedly, social media will be playing umpteen times a bigger role, but the question is “how big”?
